


Perfect

by wirewrappedlily



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Stiles is only seventeen, and then lose the reasons he's put up with this shit?, how the fuck is he supposed to be able to put up with all the shit he puts up with, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 01:50:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suddenly, Stiles just...isn't there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfect

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song "Perfect" by Marianas Trench, because if I had the chance to have a song at age seventeen that I have now, I would pick that one.

The first time Stiles isn't in the thick of it with him, Derek doesn't notice so much as register a nagging feeling of something missing. 

He was shot in the legs to bring him to his knees in front of Ennis, and the heavy, horrifying silence is uninterrupted--the silence is what tips him off. Stiles would fill the silence, would babble and trash talk stupidly, and it always seemed to buy time for Derek to find his way--their way--out of the mess. It was a background noise for him, as much as it was a ridiculous form of confidence boosting when, even paralyzed and dropped against his chest, Stiles still had faith enough to be sure that Derek would save them. 

The thing was; where he'd been in the thick of it without Stiles plenty of times…this felt like just the kind of mess Stiles loved to unwittingly flail into cleaning up. The kid's absence was a ghost beside him. 

The second time, Lydia took the form of the voice in his head. 

"Scott, where's Stiles?! Is he okay?!" The concern colouring her voice would've made Stiles die of happiness a year ago, Derek knew--so why the hell wasn't he there with her, and with Scott? 

Scott didn't answer her, and Lydia's green eyes blazed with rage. "What's going on?" Erica asked, thankfully, because given one more second he would've. 

"It doesn't matter. Can we focus on the chimera?" Scott snapped. Isaac and Erica shared a look, and Lydia looked for a moment like she was going to shoot him. Derek resolved to checking up on Stiles himself later. 

He got gored, and forgot about it until the third time, when it wasn't him or the pack or anyone but the bad guy noticing. 

Gerard Argent wasn't a wolf, or a human, or alive, or dead. Stiles, probably, would've known what the hell he was. Stiles wasn't there. 

"And that boy--that _child_ I tortured...did he ever tell you, the great and powerful _Alpha_ , about how even when I strung him up, he wouldn't scream? Kept telling me how you would save him if I didn't let him go." 

Lydia got him out, got him safe, and Derek finally had to ask, "Where's Stiles?" 

Lydia looked him in the eye with something too close to grief. "He's...he's gone." She flinched when Derek jerked at the words, her heart hiccoughing in her chest and sadness and panic in her scent, "Scott was with Isaac or Allison all the time, and his dad barely spoke to him--he just...left. He didn't have a reason to stay. What Gerard did to him...and when he cracked and told Scott, Scott lost it...Allison wouldn't believe it, and Scott--" 

"Where?!"

"I-I don't know! No one knows. He talks to his dad and I, but...but I don't even think the sheriff knows, he just...just let him go, and he wouldn't even stay for me…" Derek snarled lowly, but flicked her forwards with the loose hold he had on her arm and hugged her. Lydia tensed, fear piercing through her sadness for a moment, before she realized what the hell he was doing and just hugged him back. 

"Is there any way we can find him?" 

Lydia was quiet for a long time, "Maybe." She breathed finally. She blinked, looking up at him again, her green eyes shrewd and every inch the Lydia Martin that Stiles had fallen in love with, "Why do you…?"

Derek didn't have an answer for her, but that was all the answer she needed.


End file.
